The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 323

Book Reviews

The author has a readable style and has been scholarly in his
development of ideas and choice of material; his conclusions and
disagreements with other authorities are logically supported, and
his approach to his subject is completely dispassionate. The use
of appendices giving pertinent statistics and of numerous notes
and references add to the value of the work. Especially has the
author made good use of such sources as census reports, news-
papers, and government publications. It is certainly to Mr. Spratt's
credit that his book brings up two problems: can the same treat-
ment be given to later periods of Texas history, and how many
related and special topics are in need of treatment.
DAVID B. TRIMBLE
Alabama Polytechnic Institute
The South Lives in History: Southern Historians and Their
Legacy. The 1955 Fleming Lectures. By Wendell Holmes
Stephenson. Baton Rouge (Louisiana State University Press),
1955. Pp. 148. $3.oo.
Three Southern Historians, William Edward Dodd, Ulrich
Bonnell Phillips, and Walter Lynwood Fleming, are discussed in
this book. In Dodd the author sees a historian of democracy and
a democrat. In Phillips the author describes the career of a his-
torian of aristocracy, and a person of patrician cast of mind. In
Fleming he finds a historian of conservatism.
Each essay is replete with biographical facts, and rich in in-
sights as to the methods of work, choices of subject-matter, and
underlying philosophies, of the three men. The study on Dodd
pierces to the marrow: it is fair but just in its criticism. Stephen-
son leaves Dodd but one book by which to carry his reputation
forward. And he smiles at the democrat who, after supporting
Bryan and Wilson, could see presidential timber in John W.
Davis. The author's view of Phillips is persuasive: a historian of
the southern aristocracy who by degrees took on important char-
acteristics of his subject. Perhaps something could be made of
the counter-thesis that a gifted young man of the folk grew
with the years into sympathy and nostalgia for a regime that
was done for, and developed, over the same years, into an accom-
plished literary artist. Those who have studied under Phillips

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